1998 School Magazine

61rls Grammar ^ichool alarmbane 1998

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Barbarians

t all started when, late one night, our house was robbed. Everything waslost. Our family had neither the mone northe means to replace everything. We gathered what little we could carry that had not been smashed and set off to find a new home After a couple of days on the road, we were running out of food, and we had entered a tall forest, filled with swam s, mist and brigands. The day came when we had no food or drink left,

been of villagers as they were hunted down and slaughtered without mercy. The spectres had nor been closing in on us, but running away. That same great sorrow and mourning filled in heart once more as I stood and gazed at the carnage of in surroundings. I turned but my family was nowhere to be seen. For how long I called and wandered looking for them I do not know. They could have been driven mad with sorrow and run

and the forest looked as bleak and unyield- Ing as ever. That night, the wind whistled through the trees as a mournful wailing, and each and every one of us believed there was a tortured soul wandering the darkness, hoping for redemption. Slowly dark, forbidding clouds rolled across the sky, blotting the stars like an oil spill, until it was as dark as the very bottom of the sea it started to rain and flashes of lightning rent the sky in two, while the god of thunder clashed his cymbals like a mad- man. Lightning streaked down and hit the ground only a short distance away in the woods. None of us believed what we saw that night. Where the lightning struck, no fire started, but a ghostly white shape appeared and the dreadful wailing in- creased. The fury of the storm whipping its tattered clothes like streamers in a cyclone, it started towards us Limping, it sang, a most beautiful sound, filled with the sor- row of a thousand deaths, a thousand prisoners wailing as they were cut down ruthlessly by barbarianinvaders, while run- ning for their lives. I found myself crying, and I could hear the mumed sobs of my family. The sorrow was so great it caused my weakening lungs to call one last time "Please! No morel This is all my heart can bear!" and I collapsed with my last vision of the spectres, slowly forming a circle and closing in on my weeping family like the mist of Almageddon The next morning, the sky was bright over the forest, but the ground be neatlT it was dark with blood. During the night barbarians had come and I I. ealised the cries and screams I had heard last night 11ad

away, they could have been killed, but the thought that hurts me most is that they could have been dying somewhere and heard my cries but been too weak to answer. I stumbled onwards, not heeding where I was going, knowing only that I had to get away from those bodies, my guilt and the terrible sadness that was welling up behind my eyes. I was lost, alone and ravenously hungry when I stum- bled into the barbarian camp The barbarians were amazed that I had survived their wrath, and I became a member of their horde. I rode with them and proved myself to be such an excellent thief that Ieventually became the favourite of the leader, Goan Hkoung. One night I was invited to his tent for a drink, and I poisoned his wine with a herb I had found that makes the victim have a heart attack As he lay on the floor writhing in agony, I spoke. "You have killed many, so great will be your stiffenng. I have pity on you that you shall never rest, even in death because those yoLi have SIaLightered shall be there to torment you. " He died then, and I became the leader. Eveiyinan trusted me, but I led them to the aLithorities the next time we I'aided a town. Sometimes, I am ashamed of whatl did to Goan Hkoung and his band of brigands, but then I I'ememben "He deserved everything he got. "

by LEANNE TAYLOR FursT PRIZE Royal Coriumonwealth Society annual Essay Coinpetiton, ,,,,,, ,, 1998

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